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Monday, February 17, 2014

Dracula Diary: Epilogue

The question I have gotten a lot the past two weeks of my Dracula Diary is why? Why am I okay with doing multiple jobs, 14-18 hour days, not sleeping, wrangling people who don't want to be wrangled, stressing myself out and all of this for a show that will only run 3 times? It's a labor of love.

The Little 5 Points Rockstar Orchestra and 7 Stages has become my family since I got hired for Dracula almost 2 years ago. It's both hard to believe that it has been almost two years already and also hard to believe that it has only been two years. I still sometimes feel like the new kid and other times like I've been here forever because it's such a natural fit. At the last Krampus show Justin Welborn and I were talking and he said, "I remember the interview and now you're an institution." I don't know if I would go that far, but I definitely consider 7 Stages to be my home. (I mean, they totally gave me a desk, that means I can do whatever I want on it, right?) It's nice to find that place that you belong and you're happy to be. That picture up there in the corner, in some cases I hadn't spoken to some of those people in almost a year and it was nothing for me to send a text or a call and it was fine. I could call anyone of them to go have a drink or help me move a body, that's just how it is now.

What it really boils down to is do you want to be happy? I used to work at a law firm and I made pretty good money...I do sometimes miss the money, but I wasn't happy. When I got laid off I cried, I freaked out because what was I going to do and then the very next day I went and sold stuff at a vendor table at TribalCon. The entire time I was at the law firm I scheduled burlesque shows, traveled and performed, really that job was a soul sucking way for me to get to perform...I was literally living for my weekends. What kind of life is that? Spend five days to live for two? That's terribly disproportional and just seems like a horrible waste of time. Getting laid off was the best thing that could have happened to me.

I started doing more film work, started teaching burlesque more, started costuming more, starting trying to live a life that was an actual life rather than living for work. I started the Southern Fried Burlesque Fest, I got Syrens of the South to the next level, I even went back to school so I could get my degree in Technical Theater so I could bump up my game because actors are a dime a dozen, it's a lot harder to find good tech people. (There is always another actor who will want your part, there is not always another tech person that can do what you do.)

I love my job. I love when the show works, even if something goes wrong we fix it, and we make it work. There's so many moving parts that each show is it's own living organism. When it comes together it's just so beautiful. The end result, the wonderful show and the audience's applause is what makes it all worth while. Being proud of what you do, working in a place that you are appreciated and doing a job that you love, that's what is most important to me and that's why I do what I do.